They grow up so fast! My paper son is leaving home this week, off to see the world. He’s visiting friends, family and kind strangers first, before he graduates to bookshops on March 22. I still remember when he was a .doc! So proud 😭

“To copy truth may be a good thing, but to invent truth is much better.”– Verdi

TACT

Don’t feel obliged to write sentences.

No life is interesting that isn’t serious.

Write for readers like yourself.

Like Turgenev – that simplicity of telling that one trusts + loves.

Describe – digress – MAKE LEAPS (Forster!!!) Open chapter beautifully

Don’t write something they will recognise & accept. Write something that will astonish, that is completely different from their ideas + world + will alter them

NO FINE WRITING

Do not insist. Do not over-adorn.

Brief, lucid, mercilessly clear.

Do not endorse narrowness, lack of intelligence. Instead, concentrate on what they do know, their grace, valour, the glint of true light.

No “INTELLECTUAL” conversation/digressions, either from them or you.

“What distinguishes a classic from an ordinary book is authority and to write with this degree of authority you have to have a great deal to say and no hesitation about how it is to be said.” – William Maxwell